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THE NEWER WEST. ¥ 



Bv RICHARD J. HINTON. 






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By txansfei 



. -L^, -r..«» I 



THE NEWER WEST. 

From the Missouri River, anywhere between Leavenworth 
and Sioux City, to the Paciiic Ocean, a bird's tdght, however 
direct, would cover more than 1,400 miles of territory. From 
the British dominions to the Gulf of Mexico, on a course 
marked southward from Pembina upon the Manitoba line, our 
aerial messenger would also traverse 1,400 miles. When the 
writer first crossed the Missouri River, early in 1856, this vast 
region was almost a solitude, practically unknown even to geo- 
graphers. A considerable portion of it appeared on their maps 
as the "American Desert." Eastward, the nearest railroad points 
were Iowa City and Jeffersoji City, both not less than 200 miles 
away. Westward, California had some 26 miles of railroad, and 
it was several years before this lengthened out to 31 miles. 
It was still nearly two years before the telegraph crossed the 
Missouri and moved on westward. The pony express was 
evolved during the next year ; the first overland mail had been 
received but a year before. From the Red River to the Gulf, 
and from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, there would 
not have been found a total American white population of over 
150,000. The whole number of persons inhabiting the region in 
the summer of 1856 could not have exceeded 450,000. The 
Indians would have numbered 200,000. The hybrid Mexican 
population found in south-w^estern Texas and New Mexico, then 
including Arizona and a considerable portion of southern Colo- 
rado, was about 100,000 strong. The whites were found in 
largest numbers in California, in Oregon, in Missouri west of 
the river, and in south-western Texas ; 25,000 were in the newly- 
organized Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. 

A few days before this article was begun, the writer returned 
from an extended journey (made on public business) through 
the same region — the latest of many which he has made under 
all sorts of conditions during the intervening years. This one 



590 THE NEWER WEST. 

covered more than 14,000 miles, of which all but a few score 
were traversed in well-appointed railroad cars. The work under- 
taken was one which enabled all those engaged in it to obtain an 
excellent insight into the economic conditions, the social aspects, 
and the public feeling of all the States and Territories of the far 
West. It gave extended opportunity for a study of the changes 
that have occurred. The ofJicial purpose of the journey had 
reference only to the region beyond the 98th meridian of longi- 
tude west of Greenwich. Eighteen States and Territories were 
visited and traversed. The contrasts offered by this region to 
the solitude of 1865 were almost amazing. West of the meridian 
named there are now at least 22,000 miles of railroad, and of 
telegraph wires not less than 150,000 miles. Of telephone and 
electric-light cables, in proportion to population, there are more 
miles in use than elsewhere within the United States. There is 
to-day more property owned per cajnta than elsewhere on the 
continent. Two fifths of the natipnal domain is found west 
of the line given, and certainly three fifths of the remaining 
public lands of the United States must be sought for in the same 
region; and that, too, without considering Alaska. Yet how 
few persons are cognizant of the fact that, east and west, the 
geographical center of this Union is somewhere in the Bay of 
San Francisco ; for with the Aleutian Islanders flying our flag 
within 50 miles of the Siberian coast of Asia, our domain ex- 
tends, on a north-western and south-eastern line, some 3,000 
miles beyond the Golden Gate. 

Returning, however, to the solid earth, and eschewing what 
seems hyperbole, the region between St. Paul, Great Bend, Fort 
Worth, and the Gulf, on the east, and the Rio Grande, San 
Diego, and Tacoma, on the west, contains at this writing a popu- 
lation of about 5,000,000. It may support, under conditions 
that are realizable, a population of 100,000,000. This statement 
is made with full knowledge of the contemptuous sneers it will 
evoke from the learned ignorant and the unthinking sciolists who 
accept opinions and form conclusions at second hand. 

This newer West had eight senators in the last Congress, and 
the same number of representatives. Four new States have been 
recently admitted ; there are now sixteen senators and thirteen 



■i^ia^-trt; 



THE NEWER WEST. 591 

representatives. Four additional senators and two additional 
representatives, from Idaho and Wyoming, will be seated before 
the present session of Congress shall adjourn. Kansas, Nebraska, 
and Texas, with six more senators and twenty-two representa- 
tives, are immediately concerned with the fortunes of the region 
under consideratit)n, for at least one third of each of those States 
lies west of the line laid down as our eastern starting point. It 
may be safely assumed, then, that if there are sectional and spe- 
cial interests to be legislatively considered, the region indicated 
will have, as now organized, the support in Congress of at least 
twenty-four senators and from twenty-seven to thirty-eight repre- 
sentatives. It needs no deep research in the history of jjolitics 
to establish the formidable possibilities of such a combined vote. 
After more than fifty days of constant observation and in- 
quiry, one may well be asked for the most salient fact the journey 
impressed on those who participated. That question seems easy 
to answer, and yet when the reply comes to be expressed, there is 
difficulty in making clear and plain what is felt. But the mar- 
velous change in the character of pioneer life, belongings, and 
conditions is the one overwhelming fact. To think of towns 
springing up almost as if overnight; to see comfortable farm 
houses scattered widely over a new land whose sod was but the 
previous year, perhaps, turned up for the first time ; to see the 
railroad pushing into, crossing, and conquering the wilderness; 
to ride, as in one instance we did, through a long mountain tun- 
nel lighted by electricity ; to watch from car windows, as we 
sped in the clear darkness of a California night, the electric 
lamps that shone over city, town, farm, village, and fruit colony, 
glowing like stars hung in mid ether; to see the bare brown of 
the desert transformed into the emerald verdure of vineyard and 
orange grove ; to hear the hum of busy port, of mining town, or 
lumber camp ; more than all, to take note of the intelligence of 
the bright and brainy young thousands whom everywhere we 
met — these were impressive experiences indeed. The new 
population of the newer West is the most marvelous of all its 
striking features. It would seem in the Dakotas, in Montana, 
Idaho, and Washington, in the basin region, on the great plains 
to the center and southward, among the foot hills of the Rockies 



592 THE NEWER WEST. 

and the Sierras, as well as along the coast from Paget Sound to 
San Diego, as if a draft had been made upon the central States 
and the old North-west for their younger men and women. 
There was nothing rustic or unusual either in their dress or 
ways, and that was not the least of the changes observed. Even 
the cowboy disappears. There is little of such pioneer life as 
characterized the " fifties," No less striking is another fact, 
namely, that there are to be seen but faint traces of the rude life 
of the old mining camp, or of the louder and coarser vulgarity 
and license of that carnival of vice and crime which was so 
marked a feature of the " railroad front " 20 or 25 years ago. 
The shrill cry of "Keno! " may yet be heard on the streets of 
some mountain town, as the tourist passes the open or swinging 
door of a miners' "hell"; but even in such centers of coarse 
masculinity the echoes grow feebler, and civilization is assum- 
ing a show of virtue, " even if it hath it not." The newer North- 
west is remarkable for its rapid growth in the amenities as well 
in the solid externals of material advancement. 

One momentous fact must be taken into account first of all, 
in considering the social-economic forces that are developing 
within the newer West. The same period which covers the 
writer's observation of this region, comprises also the culmina- 
tion of a struggle whose political and social conditions were all 
controlled by a single series of economic facts. Chattel slavery 
was made valuable, as such, by tlie fact that for the period of its 
dominance cotton was king. Conditions in that case were forced 
and artificial. In the suggestions about to be made as to a pos- 
sible regional policy, the fundamental conditions are natural, not 
artificial ; the primary factors are physical — indeed, almost cos- 
mical in character. Economics lie behind all politics. Tliey 
dominate philosophies and inspire ethical ideals, yet are nlways 
themselves the outcome of natural forces and physical conditions. 

The newer West preeminently illustrates this. Its pliysical 
geography, though vastly diversified in details, is still a stupen- 
dous unit. Man may enormously modify the earth's surface by 
persistent activities, but when they cease, the ameliorations are 
effaced, and the original physical conditions become again domi- 
nant. How often, too, under the best conditions, do they force a 



THE NEWER WEST. 593 

stern recognition of their supremacy ! Mountain ranges may be 
passed or surmounted by man ; they have never yet been low- 
ered or removed. The arid interiors, with their basin-like beds 
of ancient seas or lakes, may be made in some degree subservient 
to the demands of industry. Across the great plains natural 
rivers will not run again, at least without the presence of earth- 
shaping catastrophe. Similar forces must come into play if the 
now dry belts of mountain streams and the basins of extinct 
lakes on plateau, range, and table land are ever again to be filled 
with water. The newer West is mastered by its sublime physi- 
cal features. These, therefore, must shape its policy and control 
its relations, integrally, with the rest of the American Union. 
The chief factor, indeed the dominating one, is that of aridity. 
" The arid West " is not a misnomer. From 97° 30' to tlie 
100th meridian, the sub-humid area east of the Rocky Mountains 
is well defined. From the 100th to the 126th meridian of west 
longitude across the continent, with the exception of the north- 
western section, where the limit is the 124th meridian, as far 
south as the northern boundary of California, the entire region is 
an arid one. Within the whole of it, water must be artificially 
applied to the soil, otherwise fertile, if agriculture and horticul- 
ture are to be in any wise successful pursuits. Even the raising 
of cattle and sheep is limited by this condition of aridity. 
There are not a thousand miles of navigable waters in the whole 
region. The rainfall ranges from 2 inches annually in the ex- 
treme south-west, to about 20 inches in the farther north-west. 
Across the continent direct from east to west, the range will be 
variable from 20 inches annually in the eastern sub-humid area, 
to about 18 on the plains beyond the 100th meridian ; falling 
thence to 15 inches in the foot-hills, and to 8 or 9 in the basin 
region ; rising again to 16 and 18, or even 24 inches in some 
localities, as the mountain depressions admit the influence of the 
Kuro Shiwo, the arctic current, or the trade winds that blow 
steadily for at least six months in the year from the Pacific 
Ocean. Another controlling factor in the future development of 
the newer West is found in a physical or climatic condition, 
which, broadly stated, is this: on the mountain ranges every- 
where throughout its whole extent, the precipitation (rain and 



694 THE NEWER WEST. 

snow) is always from three to five times the number of inches 
per annum that is recorded as falling on the plains, table lands, 
valleys, and basins below. 

The importance of these facts may be understood more 
clearly when it is recalled that a precipitation of 28 inches is 
considered essential to agricultural security. Under irrigation it 
may fairly be assumed that not over one half of that amount of 
moisture is essential. The difference lies in the fact that under 
artificial conditions the application of water to the soil is always 
made when the same is most needed. The precious eight weeks 
or so, in which the agriculturist of the far West sees his harvest 
made or ruined, are exactly those in which the rainfall is most 
uncertain or entirely wanting. The lack of showers during six 
weeks of July and August will reduce the wheat crop of the 
Dakotas by at least one half. 

The problems, thcL, of uncertain rain, nay, of almost com- 
plete aridity, are to be solved by permanent storm and flood 
storage works on a large scale adapted to regional conditions ; 
and this solution can be reached only through the interposition 
of the whole nation. This statement is of course disputable for 
constitutional expounders, but facts and the logic of events are 
all in favor of it. The later highways of the land were unwit- 
tingly surrendered to private control, but the safety of the com- 
monwealth is requiring, step by step, the reassumption of its 
sovereignty over the public function of transportation. Oppo- 
sition was for years steadily made to appropriations for the 
improvement of rivers and harbors. All sorts of legal fictions 
arc invented to remove constitutional scruples. It is asserted, 
and truly, that constitutionally the general government may not 
exercise police powers; for example, where the State powers are 
legalh^ paramount. Yet when it was sought to make a national 
park on the Straits of Mackinaw, at the Sault Ste. Marie, the 
object was easily obtained, in the face of the non-objecting State 
and municipal rights of Michigan, by styling the same a military 
reservation. In like manner, when it shall seem advisable for 
the general government to undertake the work of reclaiming arid 
lands, a way will surely be found of reconciling that action with 
the letter and the spirit of the Constitution 



THE NEWER WEST. 595 

So essential to the newer West is the matter of water-storage 
on a scale conimeus urate with the area, that the demand there- 
for will most certainly shape and give form to all of its public 
affairs and legislative discussion and action. The sources of the 
great rivers— the Missouri, the Upper Mississippi, the Columbia, 
the Colorado, and others— still largely remain as national property. 
It will become a regional question whether they must so continue. 
The gravest problems of water-appropriation as well as of water- 
storage confront the several communities west of the 100th 
meridian. A glance at the map will show the truth of this. 
Inter-State appropriations of water cannot be solved by any tri- 
bunals other than those that Congress may organize, or by the 
United States Supreme Court. Artificial political lines must be 
ignored by the projecting and constructing engineers. They 
work under unchangeable physical features. The lines of a 
drainage basin existed before any State w^as bounded, and will 
remain after existing State boundaries shall have been forgotten. 
In the arid West it will be found that the people are not afraid 
of cooperative government, or opposed to the development of 
administrative supervision in the directions suggested. 

An examination of the Constitutions of the States of Wash- 
ington, Montana, and North Dakota shows some notable facts. 
In each of them, as well as in the Constitutions adopted for state- 
hood purposes by the people of Wyoming, Idaho, and New Mex- 
ico, are to be found the most stringent provisions yet framed for 
the control of transportation companies and other corporations 
whose franchises cover economic functions concerned with the 
conveniences of the community— as coal-mining, gas and other 
light supply, street tramways, etc. The community asserts its 
power of control in the most unmistakable manner. In the 
same spirit also do these young commonwealths deal with the 
supply and distribution of water. Like Colorado and California, 
they declare all natural water supplies within their borders to 
be public property and under the control of the States. They 
declare that such water may not be used except for beneficial 
purposes. Those who for private profit build ditches, in order 
to bring the waters to the thirsty soil, are in law esteemed only 
as common carriers, entitled to compensation for the service ren- 
40 



596 THE NEWER WEST. 

dered, and no more. The use of land for water-storage jjurposes 
and for right of way is considered a public right ; condemnation 
under eminent domain for such use must follow. Everywhere 
the tendency in the older irrigable sections is distinctly up to 
and even beyond State supervision and regulation of water- 
usage, and to community ownership of water ways and works. 
There still remains profit, large profit, for the capitalist in the 
present construction and rapid sale of irrigation works. But 
those who expect to hold such works as a permanent source of 
rent, reckon without their host. The water is public property, 
and communities that require it to make their land useful will 
surely become the owners of all the works and ways by which it 
is to be applied where needed. 

In forecasting, then, the growth of a distinct policy shaping 
fresh demands for this newer West, I am first confronted by the 
overwhelming physical geography of the region; secondly, by 
the one supreme condition that it creates — aridity; thirdly, by 
the fact that it is impossible to achieve full reclamation of the 
desert without concurrent and continued control over the sources 
of the waters, first by the nation, next by the States affected act- 
ing with it, and finally by the local communities into which the 
States are subdivided. Private ownershi]) of water is already set 
aside. Private appropriation thereof is already modified by pub- 
lic control of a deficient supply. Private and corporate rental of 
water is subject to State and county regulation of rates. Private 
ownership of water works and ditches will soon be a thing of the 
past. The needs which have already created the beginnings of 
these policies and purposes will, as fast as the newer West 
reaches the fullness of statehood, find their counterpart in stren- 
uous demands upon the nation for aid in constructing the greater 
works needed in a vast system of water-storage and flood-control, 
such as is certain to be inaugurated. With this, it will be found 
that a general control of our remaining forest region and timber 
areas will be demanded by the same physical conditions which 
must make the newer West a practical unit, both in configura- 
tion and in the social-economic forces that will be thereby cre- 
ated and evolved. The railroads beyond the Missouri have 
already shown their submission to the same controlling law. 



THE NEWER WEST. 597 

Their construction and adniinisti-ation have been carried forward 
on an immense scale. Unity along the latitudes they serve is 
absolute ; as absolute will be the demand in the newer West for 
their })ublic ownership. There being no possibility of competi- 
tion — for there are no navigable water ways — the combination of 
forces is such as to drive forward the problem of general control. 

Though the dominating factors have now been indicated, the 
brief list does not include all the economic forces and physical 
facts which must determine the regional necessities of the newer 
West. Irrigation and reclamation, though supreme, are not the 
only factors that must be considered ; mining and pastoral life 
and enterprises must also be taken into account. They will both 
have their say, especially the first named. Mining for the pre- 
cious metals has already made of the newer West a powerful in- 
strumentality in the making of modern history. It is fast be- 
coming a systematized, scientific pursuit. Even prospecting is 
being organized. With irrigation from the stored waters of the 
mining West, the farm will soon be alongside tlie mine, and the 
prospector will no longer be at the mercy of the middle man for 
the necessaries of life. The mining interests of the newer West 
are sure to be found in the arena of financial politics, fighting for 
the metal which eastern preponderance has condemned. It will 
surely startle some complacent monometallists to realize that the 
stronghold of the bimetallists will be found in the United States 
Senate. The eight senators from the newly-admitted States are 
unquestionably radical bimetallists. The three Territories which 
stand with constitutions in hand awaiting statehood, will give six 
more senators to the same column. It may with safety be as- 
sumed that all the States west of the Mississippi will present an 
unbroken front for the free coinage of silver. They now number 
thirty-two senators, and with the three Territories asking admis< 
sion from Congress, they will soon be thirty-eiglit — more than 
two fifths of the body as it will then be constituted. 

The newer West, if it can have no interior water trafiic, will 
nevertheless have — indeed already has — a commercial ])osition 
of vast importance. Years since, a great Russian publicist, 
Alexander Herven, wrote of the Pacific Ocean as destined to 
be the new world's Mediterranean. It was pointed out that 



598 THE NEWER WEST. 

nearly one half of the globe's inhabitants were on the Asian side 
thereof, and were therefore its commercial tributaries. The 
American shores of the Pacific are to be first considered in all 
forecasts of commercial progress and power. The people who 
are making Puget Sound alive with their activities, are surely 
bound to grasp the traffic of the North Pacific. The men of the 
Oregon and California coast are not likely to be limited in their 
industrial ambitions. One of their " captains " holds the Sand- 
wich Islands in his hands, and Samoa will yet, despite the triple 
protectorate, fall easily under American control — not necessarily 
governmental, however. No matter what action British or Cana- 
dian statesmen may take, and however vast the sums they ex- 
pend, it will soon be seen in our national councils that the newer 
West will demand, and that its growing business activity will 
compel, the absorption, not only of the whole coast from Wash- 
ington to Alaska, but of at least the north-western portion of the 
Dominion. British Columbia and all the rest east to Winnipeg 
will ere long be looking toward a continental union. The same 
law of physical unity which has been considered as immediately 
affecting the newer West and its internal polity, must control in 
the extension of our Republic to the north-west. The peninsula 
of Lower California will finally follow the same directive im- 
pulse. 

Richard J. Hinton. 



THK FORUM. 



This publication addresses itself to the mass of intelligent people. 

It discusses subjects that concern all classes alike — in morals, in education, 
in government, in religion. 

It is genuinely independent, both of partisan bias and counting-room inllu- 
ence. 

It is constructive in its aim, pi-esenting opposing views not for the purpose 
of exciting strife, but in order to assist the reader to form wise conclusions. 

It employs the best-known essayists ; and it also invites to its pages men and 
women connected with important business and social interests who have special 
opportunities for information. 



A FEW OF ITS CONTRIBUTORS. 



Archdeacon F. W. Karrar. 
President Julius H. Seklye. 
Prof. John Tvndall. 
Bishop F. D. Huntington. 
Dr. J. M. Charcot. 
Justice Thomas JVI. Cooley. 
Cardinal Manning. 
President Francis L. Patton. 
Prof. John Stuart Blacrie. 
Bishop H. C. Potter. 
Frances Power Cobbe. 
Edward Everett Hale. 
Prof. Emile de Laveleye. 
Gen. Lord Wolseley. 
Prof. George P. Fisher. 
Principal James Donaldson. 
Bishop J. L. Spalding. 
Judge Thomas Hughes. 
President Timothy Dwiqht. 
Prof. William T. Harris. 
Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby. 
President James B. Angell. 
Prof. Alexander Winchell. 
President John Bascom. 
Prof. J. Peter Lesley. 
Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe. 
Prof. St. George Mivart. 
President E. G. Robinson. 
Prof. Frederic H. Hedge. 
Andrew D. White. 
Prof. William Crookes. 
President S. C. Bartlett. 
Prof. C. C. Everett. 
MoNsiGNOR T. S. Preston. 
Judgs George C. Barrett. 
James Parton. 

Pr©f. Charles Eliot Norton. 
Chancellor J. H. Vincent. 
Prof. A. P. Pkabody. 
Bishop B. J. McQuaid. 
Judge Edward A. Thomas. 
Edward Atkinson. 



Prof. Goldwin Smith. 

Dr. C. E. BROWN-SfeQUARD. 

Senator G. F. Edmunds. 

Lord Bramwell. 

Senator J. S. Morrill. 

Judge William D. Kellby. 

David Dudley Field. 

The Marquis of Lorne. 

Thomas Hardy. 

Prof. William G. Sumner. 

Major J. W. Powell. 

President Francis A. Walker. 

George W. Cable. 

Prof. Lester F. Ward. 

John G. Carlisle. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 

Prof. Charles A. Young. 

Edward Eggleston. 

Rev. Minot J. Savage. 

Judge Robert C. Pitman. 

T. W. Higginson. 

Prof. Richard T. Ely. 

Edmund Gosse. 

Charles Dudley AVarner. 

W. S. Lilly. 

Rev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin. 

Pkof. F. A. March. 

Edward J. Phelps. 

W. H. Mallock. 

Prof. Simon Newcomb. 

Judge George Hoadly. 

Prof. Theodore Gill. 

Senator Wade Hampton. 

Andrew Lang. 

Pr.oF. H. H. Boyesen. 

Rev. Dr. R. Heber Newton. 

Dr. Austin Flint. 

Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden. 

Julia Ward Howe. 

Senator W. E. Chandler. 

Prof. David Swing. 

Rev. Dr. Leonard W. Bacon. 

Eliza Lynn Linton. 



Bishop Richard Gilmour. 
Senator J. J. Ingalls. 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 
Jules Verne. 
Prof. Henry C. Adams. 
Park Benjamin. 
The Duke of Marlborough. 
Prof. N. S. Shaler. 
President J. R. Kendrick. 
Judge James M. Love. 
Prof. George J. Romanes. 
Carrou- D. Wright. 
Prof. Arthur T. Hadley. 
George Ticknor Curtis. 
Dr. Cyrus Edson. 
Senator Henry L. Dawes. 
Prof. F. W. Taussig. 
Gen. a. W. Grkely. 
Rev. Dr. C. A. Bartol. 
Gen. Henry L. Abbot. 
E. L. Godkin. 

Senator Shelby M. Cullom. 
James Sully. 
Prof. R. H. Thurston. 
Judge Albion W. TouRofeE. 
James Payn. 

Dr. William A. Hammond. 
Woods Pasha. 
Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst. 
O. B. Frothingham. 
Grant Allen. 
Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley. 
Richard H. Dana. 
Bishop F. S. Chatard. 
Judge E. H. Bennett. 
Prop. Thomas Davidson. 
Dr. Edward C. Spitzka. 
Prof. Newman Smyth. 
Gov. j. B. Foil,vkkr. 
Senator J. C. S. Blackburn 
Andrew Carnegie:. 
l\loNcuRE D. Conway. 



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